How We Chose Products for the BA Seal of Approval

If only we approached all decisions half as seriously as we did this year’s BA Seal of Approval. Here’s how the months-long vetting process played out:

The Editors’ Picks: The staff at Bon Appétit—from editors to designers to researchers—nominated the products they love. This wasn’t the first time we’d heard our editor in chief wax poetic about Martin’s Potato Rolls. We’d seen the empty coconut-water bottles in our creative director’s recycling bin. And do you follow our multimedia editor on Instagram? The guy is unofficially sponsored by Campari. In other words, we spoke from our guts.

The Competitors: Personal preference counts for a lot. Taste is, after all, subjective. But we weren’t about to put our seal on something without double-and triple-checking our work. We identified each product’s closest competitors so we could evaluate those items, too.

The Great Taste Tests: For seven days, a group of tasters assembled for blind taste tests of more than 350 products. (Special thanks to deputy editor Scott DeSimon, who nominated clam juice. Fun day.) Lines were drawn. Polite arguments were waged. Staffers were shocked to discover new favorites. Reams of detailed notes and a few fractured office friendships later, we had our winners: 25 products that we unanimously agreed deserved the BA Seal of Approval.